Rezzed 2018: a round-up

This past weekend saw us attending 2018’s Rezzed expo in London. Thousands of gamers hit the rooms of the beautiful Tobacco Dock to get their hands on over 200 playable titles and meet their creators on the show floor, as well as attend developer sessions by some well-known designers and find out how to get a job in games at the GamesIndustry.biz Career Fair.

In the introduction post published on Friday, I mentioned that the thing I love most about the event hasn’t changed in the six years I’ve been attending. That’s the atmosphere: a real vibe of support for independent developers where everyone comes together to celebrate indie gaming. It’s not as flashy as some of the other annual events and you can really get to spend some quality time with upcoming titles.

Although the atmosphere was still there this time around, the event felt different somehow although it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why. That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy our time at Rezzed however; we had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend and be attending again next year. Here are the highs and lows of 2018’s show along with a few teasers about the posts coming up over the next week.

The other highlight was being in the front row for a developer session with Tim Schafer, one of the designers of my beloved Monkey Island. This was pretty apt considering the increase in the number of narrative games on the show floor this year; I’ve added quite a few titles to my Steam wishlist including Disco Elysium by ZA/UM and Lamplight City by Grundislav Games, both of which are due to feature in a post coming later this week.

Lowlights

While Schafer’s section was a highpoint of the weekend, the other developer sessions were unfortunately lacking. In previous years I’ve always found at least a few I’ve wanted to attend but the range of subjects on offer this time just wasn’t as interesting, and nothing else caught my attention. The presentations have always been something I look forward to when going to the expo so I was little disappointed.

Alongside the increase in narrative titles on display this year, there seemed to be more games in general and additional space had been filled at the Tobacco Dock which was good to see. However, there seemed to be fewer ‘standout’ titles: those you see as you walk into a room and think to yourself ‘I simply have to play that.’ That’s not to say I didn’t find some gems – simply that they were harder to come across this time.

And to anyone reading this who works for Eurogamer and coordinated the event: please sort out the food next year because it wasn’t great! A gamer can’t live by chips, cans of coke and Mars bars alone, you know.

Did you attend this year’s Rezzed event? If so, what did you think of it and what was your game of the show? There’ll be a few more posts coming over the next few days and in the meantime, take a look at the photo gallery below to see what we got up to.

EGX is kind of hard for us to get to also, so it means we can only go for a day or two rather than attend the whole event. We should hopefully be there in September though – let us know if you’re around!

I’ve never done Hyper Japan – I’m not sure I’d be able to convince the other-half to go with me ha ha ha! We’ve got tickets for the first PLAY expo in London in August though, which should be interesting…

Actually, now you come to mention it… we played a game where you were a fox and another where you were a wolf. Then there was one where you could switch between a man and a dog, and another between a girl and a cat.

I really wanted to go to this and had planned to but I hadn’t anticipated the hit my ski trip would take on my bank account so I couldn’t afford it =( maybe next time! It looks like loads of fun though I’m glad you had a good time!